Campaigners complain to IGLTA about complicity of Israeli travel agencies

We are writing to urge you to suspend the membership of five of your member organizations, under the terms of your by-laws, for their violation of IGLTA’s professional code of conduct regarding discrimination and deceptive advertising.

We are specifically referring to the following aspects of IGLTA’s Code of Conduct:

Each member will not discriminate as to sex, race, color, religion, national origin, age, disability status, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.

Each member will be responsible at all times for the truthful and non-deceptive advertising or promotion regarding his/her business and its products or services.

Each member will conduct business with strict adherence to the laws and regulations of the state and country where incorporated and in accordance with business or professional codes adhered to within the travel industry.

The recently passed UN Security Council resolution 2334, which definitively confirms the illegality of all Israeli colonies built in the occupied territory, should remind all corporations, associations and states of their legal, not to mention ethical obligation not to recognize Israeli settlements as legal or to conduct business-as-usual with them, profiting from their illegality.

Discrimination

Israeli settlements are not just illegal under international law; they are considered war crimes, according to the 1998 International Criminal Court Statute, as they are built on stolen land, promote the forcible displacement of Palestinian communities, and transfer population from the occupying state to the occupied territory.

Settlement businesses, in turn, profit directly from this discrimination and oppression of Palestinians. According to Human Rights Watch, “settlement businesses depend on and benefit from Israel’s unlawful confiscation of Palestinian land and other resources, and facilitate the functioning and growth of settlements. Settlement-related activities also directly benefit from Israel’s discriminatory policies in planning and zoning, the allocation of land, natural resources, financial incentives, and access to utilities and infrastructure. These policies result in the forced displacement of Palestinians and place Palestinians at an enormous disadvantage in comparison with settlers.”

One example is IGLTA member OUTstanding Travel. OUTstanding offers LGBT tourists wine tasting tours in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, boosting the Israeli settlement economy and encouraging the illegal appropriation of natural resources – land and water – from the occupied territory. The result, as detailed by the The Arab Centre for Human Rights in the Golan Heights, is “an extreme example of racial discrimination” against the region’s indigenous Syrian Arab population.

Deceptive advertising

IGLTA member organisations in Israel promote deceptive advertising by presenting tourism destinations in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and in the Golan Heights as “Israel”. This is reflected in the maps they show, which erase the UN demarcation line, the “Green Line,” as well as in the narrative and photos used to present locations in the occupied territories as being in “Israel” when in fact they are not. A blatant example of this deception is the depiction of the Old City of Jerusalem as being part of Israel, in spite of the fact that the Old City is recognized by the UN, including in a recent UNESCO resolution, as an inseparable part of occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem.

The UN has persistently condemned Israel’s military occupation, and no country in the world recognises the occupied territories as part of Israel. This intentional and blatant misrepresentation by IGLTA members in Israel legitimises Israel’s annexation of the settlements and serves the Israeli government’s goal of making permanent its military occupation.

OUTstanding Travel serves as a prime example of the annexation of occupied Palestinian territory. Their itinerary takes tourists to the Old City and to Bethlehem, without ever mentioning these cities are Palestinian. Kenes Tour takes its tourists on a walk through the Old City, obscuring the status of that city.

IGLTA’s Israeli members are key players for the Israeli government’s state sponsored gay tourism campaign. With this campaign the government hopes to attract investments and divert attention from the political context of military violence and occupation. Israel is therefore not a regular gay tourist destination. Since 2010, Palestinian queer organizations have expressed their concerns about Israel’s state sponsored Pinkwashing campaign. To promote Israel as a regular tourist destination for gay people obscures ongoing and well-documented discrimination and human rights violations of Palestinians.

Not only are the aforementioned groups in violation of IGLTA’s code of conduct, but they also violate the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism to which IGLTA must adhere as part of its membership of the UN World Tourism Organization.

The UN World Tourism Organization considers respect for international law and human rights as a condition for membership.The World Committee on Tourism Ethics (WCTE) is tasked with monitoring its members’ implementation of the code of ethics. It also receives complaints regarding breaches of its code of ethics. Organizations found in violation of the code of ethics may have their UN WTO certification revoked. IGLTA’s failure to suspend the mentioned Israeli member organization based on the serious and damning evidence above may compel us to consider this as an option to pursue. But we remain hopeful that this issue will be dealt with within IGLTA’s structures.

While IGLTA’s mission is to “provide information and resources for LGBT travelers and expand LGBT tourism globally by demonstrating its significant social and economic impact,” IGLTA member organisations from Israel do the opposite. In compliance with your code of conduct and bylaws, we hope that you will suspend the aforementioned members, unless they end their false and deceptive advertisements and, more importantly, their business in illegal Israeli settlements which contravenes international law and human rights principles.

We look forward to receiving your response by 18 April 2017, before considering publishing this letter publicly.

Sincerely,

Signed:

al-Qaws for Sexual and Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society

Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)